AUSD and AEA Move to Fact-Finding Stage

Just a quick update on the negotiations between the Alameda Unified School District and the Alameda Education Association: the two parties were unable come to agreement on K-3 class sizes during last Friday’s mediation session. And that means they now go to the next stage of the impasse process: “fact finding.”

As I wrote back in November, the AEA wants K-3 sizes to go back to 20:1. AUSD has been asking that class sizes stay at 25:1, as stipulated in Measure A, a parcel tax for the schools passed last March. In November, the Public Employee Relations Board declared that the two parties were at an impasse and they assigned a third party mediator to help them come to an agreement.

According to a statement sent out by Superintendent Kirsten Vital on Tuesday, the district did make a proposal on class sizes to the AEA during mediation, but the two sides still couldn’t find common ground.

During this next fact-finding stage, both parties present their arguments and proposals. A neutral, three-party panel reviews those arguments and comes up with a recommendation for resolving the issue. In an email today, a district representative told me that this process should take between 45 and 60 days.

Either the district or the union can reject that recommendation. But if they don’t come to an agreement by the time the contract expires (June 2012), the Board of Education can impose class sizes.

The mediation, by the way, only deals with the topic of class sizes. The teacher’s union and the district will begin negotiating the full teacher contract in separate sessions later this winter.